The present invention relates to digital imaging devices including digital cameras, and more particularly to a method and system for expanding the hardware and features of the digital camera.
Conventional methods for expanding the hardware available to a portable device, such as a digital camera, employ a docking station or connector. For example, docking stations can be used to charge the batteries of a portable digital imaging device, such as a digital camera. The docking station allows the portable digital imaging device to utilize the power supply of the docking station. Similarly, plugging a portable computer into a docking station may allow the portable computer to utilize a printer coupled with the docking station. A connector is also conventionally used to expand a small connector on a portable device, such as a digital camera, to several larger connectors, such as video in and video out connectors. Thus, such docking stations and connectors typically allow a portable device to be plugged into a stationary device more easily and without utilizing significant additional space. Once plugged into the stationary device, the portable device can utilize the hardware features of the stationary device.
In conventional docking stations and other conventional mechanisms for expanding the hardware features available to a portable device, the hardware features are already supported by the portable device. For example, when a digital camera is plugged into a battery charger, the battery begins recharging without changing the function available to the digital camera. Similarly, a printing feature is typically available in a portable computer without reference to whether the portable computer is coupled with a docking station. Once the physical connection between the portable computer and the printer is established, the portable computer accesses the printer. Using the docking station merely makes the physical connections to the printer easy for the user.
In conventional digital imaging devices, such as digital cameras, there is an additional barrier to using a variety of docking stations or other peripheral devices. Conventional digital imaging devices require a certain amount of memory, both in permanent storage and random access memory (xe2x80x9cRAMxe2x80x9d), to perform functions such as image capture. Conventional digital imaging devices are also designed to be portable and, therefore, have limited memory. Consequently, the memory of such digital imaging devices should not be unnecessarily cluttered by software required to interface with different docking stations while the digital imaging device is being used to capture images.
Accordingly, what is needed is a system and method for adding functions to a digital imaging device where the functions utilize hardware not already supported by the digital imaging device. The present invention addresses such a need.
The present invention provides a method and system for adding at least one function to a digital imaging device. The at least one function utilizes hardware which is not already supported by the digital imaging device. The method and system comprise accessing a remote memory containing information relating to the at least one function. The method and system further comprise loading the information relating to the at least one function on the digital imaging device so that the at least one function and the hardware can be used by the digital imaging device.
According to the system and method disclosed herein, the present invention allows the hardware features of a digital imaging device to be expanded.